


in tongues like thunder

by Byacolate



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Lore, Elvish, Established Relationship, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hasty of him, to assume things like usefulness matter very much at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in tongues like thunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snakepapa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakepapa/gifts).



> For a little trade with the unbelievably talented [kidneypunches](http://kidneypunches.tumblr.com/) with her Mahariel and Zevran. This has been so much fun! I hope you don't mind if I take your son on another joy ride sometime. :D

“So. Who do I have to thank for this? June? Sylaise?”

 

“Me.” The Warden prods at the fire with a long steel poker. Zevran considers the effort it would take to throw a pillow at him all the way from the bed.

 

“Come now! I‘m an impressionable student hungry for knowledge, and you are my teacher. Your purpose is to guide me toward greater understanding. So... guide me.”

 

His hair tumbles over a shoulder, dark as the soot on his fingers. The roaring fire in the hearth is a fitting backdrop for his heated gaze.

 

“For what is your question meant? It is said that Sylaise, keeper of the hearth, gave us fire and the means to build it.”

 

“Yes, I remember this. Your warmest creator. Imagine, to be held to her bosom. With the greatest respect, of course. But I meant the make of your keep. Would you not then give thanks to your god of craftsmanship?”

 

“Mm.“ He dusts his hands off on his trousers - partially because he‘s a brute, and partially because they‘re the only thing he has on. It‘s an excellent look on him, ashes and all. “Perhaps. Though the crafts we attribute to June lie primarily in weaponry. Bows.” He replaces the poker on the wall with little finesse. “Arrows.”

 

If Zevran were a dramatic sort, and he undoubtedly is, he might be tempted to call the way the Warden crosses the room a _prowl_. He crawls into bed beside Zevran, warm to the touch when Zevran brushes his hands over his arms, his chest.

 

It has been long enough, he thinks. Zevran‘s missed this while he‘s been away.

 

He draws his thumbs over the Warden‘s blood writing - Vallaslin. He‘s missed that, too. And the molten emotion behind those eyes when he looks at Zevran.

 

Zevran wonders what he sees, and if it could be half as good as what Zevran does.

 

“Lesson concluded, my dear Warden?” he says - laughs, when a familiar mouth drops to his neck. “Commander,” he says instead, sinking bonelessly into the bed when his Warden finds the hem of his shirt, and his way underneath.

 

“Only if you wish it, vhenan,” says he in his mother‘s tongue, pressing Zevran down.

 

He knows what that means. Still his heart races to hear it, even after all the life he‘s lived. Even after all this time.

 

“Mi amor,” he offers playfully, fingers useless at the Warden‘s chest. He should do something - it is hardly in his nature to just lie back and let things happen to him. An active participant, is Zevran.  


 

“Emma lath.” Less playful.  


 

Teeth, against his collar bone. Zevran has a new scar there, made three months back on the borders of Antiva. A gift from a Crow - a beautiful woman with even more beautiful poisoned gauntlets. Now he knows it hasn‘t gone unnoticed.

 

Coyly, “What else can you teach me?”

 

“Ar lasa ghilan,” he begins - _I give guidance_ \- and he goes on, of course, but that‘s the only Elven Zevran recalls. And only then because it's prefaced a great many of these conversations. Valiantly, Zevran keeps his eyes from glazing over by occupying them with the Warden‘s mouth - the shape of his lips and the way his tongue moves as he speaks.

 

Never one to deny himself his urges for long, Zevran surges up in the middle of something hopefully very dirty to lick his way into that mouth.

 

Silence,but for the wet note of kisses and Zevran‘s breath of triumph.  


 

Oh yes. It‘s been _far_ too long.

 

His dear Warden says something into the silence when Zevran falls back to the bed, and it takes a moment for Zevran‘s brain to translate - _hair_ , and _more_ , and _long_ in the literal, not in the figurative, and he makes his assumptions from there. Much in the way he learned Common, so very long ago.

 

“It has been some time since I‘ve visited a barber, yes. You don‘t like it?” He stretches in a way he knows to be very fetching and drags a hand through his hair to pull it from its ribbon. If he recalls, when last they parted it fell only to his shoulders. They‘ve been apart for ten months now - ten months of growth. His hair is longer, and he know it shines; he‘s spared no expense for luster or hygiene.

 

The Warden‘s hand catches Zevran‘s, tangled in his hair. “I didn‘t say that.”

 

“No,” Zevran agrees with a grin. “But I was fishing for compliments.”

 

A dark brow lifts. “Because I‘m known for my complimentary nature.”

 

“I thought perhaps you might make an exception just this once. For me. And my lustrous golden hair.”

 

The Warden hums, and his wide palm presses Zevran‘s chest further into the bed. A part of him wants to struggle, if only to revel in the uselessness of it. His Warden‘s arms are bare and corded with muscle, thick and powerful.

 

There‘s a time and a place for the sort of play niggling at Zevran‘s libido; while Zevran might argue that anywhere could be the place - particularly the anywhere that‘s his lover‘s own bed - the time, perhaps, is not their first reunion after so long apart. There will be time.

 

“Perhaps,” the Warden allows, feeling out the source of Zevran‘s heartbeat. “Just for you. Just this once.”

 

“In that case, my dear Warden: Ma serannas.” He follows the blood writing on his lover‘s skin with the reverence due them. “Just this once.”

 

* * *

 

Beyond his native Antivan, Zevran is fluent in Common, for practical purposes. He‘s a deft enough hand at Rivaini to seduce a man or explain in quick detail why he‘s about to die - sometimes both in the same hour. He‘s picked up bits of many tongues here and there in his early time with the Crows.

 

But he‘s older now. As time goes on, just picking things up becomes more and more difficult without effort.

 

There‘s very little point in learning Elven. There are no Dalish Crows - he has no need to add them to his crusade. He keeps to cities and populated roads, and in his rare dealings with the Dalish have proven their general adequacy in Common.

 

He has no mind for it anymore. Mahariel has to repeat himself time and time again for anything to stick, and even then, it often vanishes in the pockets of time they spend apart.

 

Even so...

 

Even so, the look in his face when Zevran salutes him with bloodied gauntlets, “Aneth ara,” makes him reconsider his opinion. Hasty of him, to assume things like _usefulness_ matter very much at all.

 

“Aneth ara,” he returns, softer than Zevran might have once believed him capable.

 

It‘s been a year. They‘re both allowed a little sentimentality.

 

Zevran has a secret tucked away beneath layers of wit and longing. It‘s a clan-shaped secret, a little kernel he saves for the middle of his own personal tale of Kirkwall‘s finest, though it belongs at the beginning. His Warden looks on, curled up in a tent like the old days, amused more than anything when Zevran tells him of the kindness of the Dalish.

 

“Perhaps in part for my ears,” Zevran muses, “and my fine gloves, and my very elven greeting.”

 

“And your silver tongue.”

 

“Nonsense! You know my tongue is yours alone.”

 

He moves to demonstrate exactly what he means. It‘s another hour before he can continue his tale.

 

“They gave their name to me, and you can imagine my surprise when I found it familiar.” Zevran rests his chin upon his hands where he‘s laid over the Warden‘s chest. Expectant eyes are upon him, and flash, unreadable, when he says: “Sabrae were my shelter and my guides. They were kind to me. Selfless. I believe I may owe them my life.” He drums his fingers over Mahariel‘s chest. “In more ways than one.”

 

There‘s no response, not right away, so Zevran fills the silence himself. He gives an amusing anecdote about the lesson in Elven he received from a pair of small children, and a better one about the hunters refusing to compare knives. “It was very difficult to prove that superiority in length was mine when they wouldn’t take theirs out.” Zevran sighs. 

 

Finally, a noise from the stoic mass beneath him: a snort. 

 

“Ah, you live. I thought perhaps from your silence that I’d crushed you.” 

 

“You overestimate your muscle mass.”

 

Zevran tsks. “There‘s that complimentary nature of yours again. Don‘t you ever rest?”

 

Fingers wind through his hair. He cut it once, but it‘s longer now.

 

“Did they... did you say anything about...”

 

“You?” Zevran leans into his touch. “What would I have to say? That their strongest, handsomest son saved Thedas from certain death? That he leads Ferelden‘s esteemed Grey  Wardens? That he's going grey at the temples? That I was bedding him? No.” He closes his eyes. “You aren‘t a bargaining chip for safe harbors. I said nothing of you.”

 

The hand in his hair remains, stroking pensively. Zevran can‘t see himself changing the past, so he doesn‘t fill the silence with apologies.

 

“It‘s just as well,” says his pillow, tugging at the strands. He speaks slowly and quietly, and Zevran is listening. “We've all moved on. I have a new clan to keep now. They're unruly, but I think in time, they might function as a cohesive team. One of them is even learning the language of the People.”

 

Zevran smiles against the backs of his own hands.

 

“Your Velanna would not thank you for the implication.”

 

“My Zevran might.”

 

Zevran's exhale is more laugh than breath. “Yes,” he says, and resigns himself to happiness. “He might.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Esu" by B.steady
> 
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).


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